DOVER – Top chefs from three restaurants on the Seacoast are up to a winter challenge to make a high-end dinner using ingredients from farm, sea and pantry. Seacoast Local is asking chefs to make it happen to benefit ReRootEd, their food program and to educate other restaurateurs and the public.

The food is ALL local—less than a 50-mile radius. No citrus, no imported sugar, salt or oil. Farmers and producers have everything needed to go gourmet right here. The aforementioned obsessively local concept, along with this roster of chefs… it is inevitable that the guest with fork, knife and food will win.

The series kicks off in Dover on February 1, at the new Stages at One Washington.

At Stages, modern techniques are paired with classic flavors to bring guests a new dining experience each time they dine. Executive Chef and owner, Evan Hennessey, has headed up kitchens in Portsmouth as well as having experiences in some of the top restaurants in the country. Stages is Hennessey’s new concept restaurant in Dover, where the themed dinners change every month. For the winter Field & Spoon challenge, Stages chefs will explore the versatility of birds either raised or hunted. The birds will be presented with ingredients that not only accentuate but challenge the complex flavor profiles given during cooking.

Then head to Portsmouth for the second dinner on February 22 at The Kitchen on Islington Street.

The tasting style menu will offer many treats, starting with Archur Farms beef Carpaccio, Katahdin chips, onion jam, and black trumpet dust. Another four courses will bless guests’ plates, Bang Island mussel chowder, an heirloom salad, polenta, braised rabbit, and eggnog ice cream. The menu is the inspiration of the two owners and Executive Chefs, Matt Greco and Michael Prete.

Chef Matt Greco has a family seeded passion for cooking emphasized in Italian and Mediterranean cuisine. This led him to a degree at The Institute of Culinary Education, in NY as well as The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. He worked at Michael Shlow’s Boston famed Via Matta among a couple other notable restaurants in Boston’s North End. He led a private chef business and then planted roots in Portsmouth and was the chef at Blue Moon Evolution in Exeter before his current position as co-chef/owner of The Kitchen, Sandwich Kings Food Truck and Portsmouth Catering Company.

Chef Michael Prete has over 20 years in the industry and has aided in the opening of many properties that are prospering today from fine-dining to clubs. He studied at The French Culinary Institute, which is now The International Culinary Center in NYC. A four-year stint of private chef-ing, consulting and catering led him to meet up with Matt Greco where the two opened The Kitchen.

The finale!

Executive Chef and Owner, Evan Mallett of Black Trumpet Bistro in Portsmouth will end the winter challenge on March 12. Mallett’s menu will feature lots of under-appreciated local seafood, great local brews, and even sea salt made in house from a deep-water haul brought in by a local fishing boat. In fact, that will be the only salt used in the dinner. Depending on the state of snowmelt, locally foraged river greens may also play a role. And an old friend of the Chef will contribute locally milled New Hampshire flour. The courses will be paired with beer from Portsmouth proper and Kittery.

For Mallett, the path into cooking professionally was a sinuous one, wending its way from Washington, D.C. up the coast to Boston and ultimately the ridiculously quaint seaport village of Portsmouth. Having cooked a little in the late Eighties and early Nineties, and after several stops for college education and stints in advertising and food journalism, Evan ate a meal at Lindbergh’s Crossing in 1998 and--with help from his fiancée Denise--had an epiphany. The restaurant at 29 Ceres Street, already renowned for its twenty-six year run as the legendary Blue Strawbery, would become the epicenter of the Malletts’ world.

Each dinner is priced at $50—well worth it!

Seacoast Local’s ReRootEd program hosts Field & Spoon farm dinners at seacoast area farms paired with hot, up-and-coming chefs. ReRootEd also helps host the Local Food Network, conducts regional food system research, and co-hosts Fishtival, and a Matchmaker and Tradeshow event to connect local food businesses.

You can find more information and Register at www.seacoastlocal.org or by calling 603.766.1775.